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Nintendo Aims to Have First (Second) Movie Out in Next 2-3 Years

Which Nintendo franchise should be made into a film first?


Results are only viewable after voting.

Trilobit

Member
I would love to see how Wes Anderson would portray the Brothers and their dysfunctional relationship.
PhJQeyE.jpg

The main setting would be an underwater stage.
 
Ok, I love Nintendo and their main franchises, but why do people think these movies will be great? I mean, the main reason Pixar and, recently, Disney 3d movies are so beloved is not just because they are well animated, but because they have, at least for a "kid's" movie, deep, emotional or inspired stories and characters.

Let's be honest, Nintendo has never shown they can write a good story that will reach a broad audience. Their games are about gameplay.

Unless they hire serious outside help, I could see their movies being along the lines of the Ratchet and Clank movie, just with more popular characters. In other words, a movie that should have been direct-to-video. A world/character/story that works in a platformer/adventure/Metroid game, but doesn't translate to a memorable movie.

All that negativity aside, I will still be interested in the end and hope for the best. Hopefully they realize that getting help isn't a failure.

For me, it's certainly exciting to see them try. The POTENTIAL is there. And that's good enough for me.
 
Tried crunching some numbers for a bit. Let me know if I got anything wrong.
Nintendo plans to invest some of their Seattle Mariners profits into movies.
From the Mariners sale thread, here's an estimate:
Nintendo currently owns 55% of the team.

45% of the team (valued at 1.4 billion per terms of the deal) is $630 million

Pretty nice-sized warchest for NOA
So let's say they have 500-600M to work with.
On the high end of movie budgets, Captain America: Civil War's budget was $250M...but I don't think they'll make anything that big ever.
More realistically, animated movies cost around 80 million to 150 Million on average.
Angry Birds, a fairly successful video game movie was budgeted at 80M while the average Disney Animation (Frozen, Wreck it Ralph) were budgeted at ~$150M. Big animated movies like How to Train your dragon were also budgeted at $150M.
For their first outings I'd imagine being around $80-100M.
They can afford to invest more since they're not just looking to profit off of the film, but also to increase brand appeal to new customers and existing fans (also making money from increased game and merchandise sales)
So around 5 movies before using up the Mariners war chest?
Though, a word of caution:
Ratchet and Clank which really should've been a direct to DVD release, probably caused more harm than good to the brand despite the well received game.
It had a $20M budget and hasn't even made half of that back
 
i can't wait to see a Nintendo movie.

them deciding to do it themselves only makes me more excited.

btw i rewatched Super Mario Bros. the movie last year. it's a hilarious good time in a 'bad movie' way. love that parting shot of Bowser Dennis Hopper cackling maniacally while he disintegrates into another dimension.
 

aBarreras

Member
Ok, I love Nintendo and their main franchises, but why do people think these movies will be great? I mean, the main reason Pixar and, recently, Disney 3d movies are so beloved is not just because they are well animated, but because they have, at least for a "kid's" movie, deep, emotional or inspired stories and characters.

Let's be honest, Nintendo has never shown they can write a good story that will reach a broad audience. Their games are about gameplay.

Unless they hire serious outside help, I could see their movies being along the lines of the Ratchet and Clank movie, just with more popular characters. In other words, a movie that should have been direct-to-video. A world/character/story that works in a platformer/adventure/Metroid game, but doesn't translate to a memorable movie.

All that negativity aside, I will still be interested in the end and hope for the best. Hopefully they realize that getting help isn't a failure.

i think they make great stories, but those arent the focus of their games, they have demonstrated that they can show a competent story without cutscenes or things like that, their story telling resides in their quirkiness and i think they are pretty great at it
 

Nanashrew

Banned
Medusa's Revenge was done by Studio 4C
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9eLGRCoFJI

I'd be absolutely on board with this.

Yep! They also did the animation for Catherine, Tokyo Mirage Session, Asura's Wrath, Ace Combat 4, Rogue Galaxy and more.

I just love a lot of their work. And their 2015 works vers. trailer is so good in showing off their varied styles. Also if anyone hasn't seen Genius party or Genius Party Beyond ya'll should! It's still up on Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKLOs6YHwlE
 

gafneo

Banned
It seems like after Ubisoft learned from Marvel that there needed to be more internal descitions from the real studios, Nintendo caught on so now game films will get an official stamp of approval.
 

Jezan

Member
I will quote a quote of myself:

Start with Mario, Kirby, DK, Yoshi,Star Fox, Metroid, Zelda, Earthbound, Pokemon (not related to the anime), F-Zero movies a la Disney/Pixar. That's phase 1.
End phase 1 with Super Smash Bros. movie.
Start phase 2 with Ice Climber and Fire Emblem movies, release a sequel of phase 1. End phase 2 with Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Phase 3: Wario and Pikmin movies, sequels to phase 1 & 2. End with Brawl.

Now seriously. I think that a Mario movie would work, if the "save the princess" story is too cliché, just make it the first act and the second and third acts Mario and company along with rescued Peach join forces with Bowser to take down a new evil.

Kirby would totally work, he doesn't even need to talk just make cute sounds like the anime and let Meta Knight talk, if it's not based on Super Star then a Crystal Shards movies would work too and Ribbon does the exposition, just look at Wall-E, almost no words. Release a shit ton of Kirby plushies and toys, Nintendo swims in money and the world in cute and pink.

Earthbound/Mother movie also would be awesome, the power of friendship is always a nice theme. Pikmin movie could be similar about making "friends" with strangers, aka there is still hope left in the world (Olimar relationship with the Pikmin and they helping him just because it's what they do)

Even a Star Fox movie would work, people love talking animals. The only problem I see is that people will associate Star Fox with cute and any future game will most probably be "E" or "E10+". This would include Metroid and F-Zero, would be tricky to make it work in movies and games.

If they want to play it safe Star Fox could be about "believe in yourself and save the galaxy" , Metroid about "family, you don't chose family..... and justice in the galaxy, also about being along but not really, you have yourself and people(the family) who loves you and know you are the best", extra points for female-lead movie, and F-Zero about "believe in yourself, work hard and do no wrong" include a funny scene where Falcon uses the Pink costume.

Before the Mario movie there is a short called "Yoshi's Island".
Thinking about Wall-E, a R.O.B movie! Along with Mr. Game & Watch and Duck Hunt, but the theme is "be yourself, people love you always". The Ice Climbers would have a separate movie, about the power of siblings, like Frozen but with no songs and better! Release near Christmas.

Also a Panel de Pon movie, get inspiration from Tinkerbell movies! It's about a faerie with a magical lipstick that creates magical blocks to bring happiness to the world.

So yeah I think Nintendo characters can carry awesome movies, though a lot of attention should be payed to prevent disasters.

I want Nintendo movies!! Though these ideas are super safe, but it works for Marvel so....

EDIT: All movies should be CG, no live-action, maybe Metroid/F-Zero could work as live-action, but not Zelda.

TL,DR: All characters in Smash can carry a movie, all IPs introduced in Smash have a movie, end in Smash, then for Melee all previous movies get a sequel and new IPs added to the game get a new movie, repeat till you get to Smash 4.

And it works like the Marvel universe, it even works with Third parties: Bayonetta could be the Deadpool of Nintendo's universe (I know Deadpool is not a Marvel movie, but still) and Cloud/Sonic/Pac-Man/Megaman are like Spider-Man joining Civil War.

My wallet is ready! (No it's not)
 
It seems like after Ubisoft learned from Marvel that there needed to be more internal descitions from the real studios, Nintendo caught on so now game films will get an official stamp of approval.
I guess it is yet to be seen if this is successful since even Ubisoft's own games don't have good stories in them despite being story focused.
Marvel is probably the key example of how to do this as well as possible, though.
I will quote a quote of myself:



And it works like the Marvel universe, it even works with Third parties: Bayonetta could be the Deadpool of Nintendo's universe (I know Deadpool is not a Marvel movie, but still) and Cloud/Sonic/Pac-Man/Megaman are like Spider-Man joining Civil War.

My wallet is ready! (No it's not)
I'm not sure if Nintendo will pursue a "Nintendo Cinematic Universe", though it could be cool.
Marvel's stories already have all of these characters intermingle but Nintendo's games never do that. Unifying that and setting up a Smash bros movie released next to Smash 5/6 would be pretty amazing if done right, though.
 

mantidor

Member
I need, need a Metroid movie. Now that people talk so much about representation and all it would be perfect timing.

On the other hand the last attempt from them in that franchise was... abysmal, cinematically speaking.
 
I need, need a Metroid movie. Now that people talk so much about representation and all it would be perfect timing.

On the other hand the last attempt from them in that franchise was... abysmal, cinematically speaking.
As long as Sakamoto and Team Ninja aren't involved I imagine it'll turn out at least better than Other M.
I think they'd get props for releasing a female led action animated movie, but I'm not too sure about how doable Metroid is as a movie.
I know people would say "just do Aliens, duh!", but Metroid isn't a horror franchise and Samus can usually take on anything that's thrown at her.
She's also usually alone with nobody to talk to so dialogue would be a bit harder
 

AndrewPL

Member
Gross. Nintendo will have ok graphics and a horrible plot and wonder why no one cares about their movies while Disney and Pixar make billions.
 

foxuzamaki

Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
As long as Sakamoto and Team Ninja aren't involved I imagine it'll turn out at least better than Other M.
I think they'd get props for releasing a female led action animated movie, but I'm not too sure about how doable Metroid is as a movie.
I know people would say "just do Aliens, duh!", but Metroid isn't a horror franchise and Samus can usually take on anything that's thrown at her.
She's also usually alone with nobody to talk to so dialogue would be a bit harder
sakomoto is responsible for the atmosphere and style that is metroid in the first place.
 
Gross. Nintendo will have ok graphics and a horrible plot and wonder why no one cares about their movies while Disney and Pixar make billions.
Not sure where you got that from the interview.
Isn't wb buying the Pokemon rights!?
Pokemon in most cases doesn't count as a Nintendo franchise which is why there were pokemon mobile games before Nintendo officially decided to release mobile games.
sakomoto is responsible for the atmosphere and style that is metroid in the first place.
While I don't believe it's all Sakamoto's fault since the people making the cutscenes also made the cutscenes for other Team Ninja games like NG3 which suffered from equally awkward cutscenes, I imagine Sakamoto's not good with dialogue especially english dialogue.
 

Bagu

Member
I wonder if they'll do shorts for franchises that might not be as suited for full length films.
Have a silly F-Zero race before the Kirby movie starts for example.
 
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